Pedal Power

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In the cavernous church basement in Montreal's east plateau, bikes are carefully piled up in every direction that meets the eye. In this dim and oddly medieval-looking den, Claire Morissette, founder of the new organization Cyclo Nord Sud (Cyclo North South) is glowing as she talks about her new project. Last October, she sent her first shipment of nearly 500 bicycles to the Federacion de Mujeres de Cuba (Women's Federation of Cuba). Soon after, 500 more bikes were leaving for Cuernavaca, Mexico. Collected from the innumerable bikes gathering dust in garages of the Montreal region, and then swiftly fixed up, they are prepared for a new career in the South, where they can be used as tools for a convivial and ecological development. "Our old bikes can easily see their lives extended by about 30 years in the South," Morissette says.

At a time when Indonesia and China, these bastions of cycling, ban human-powered two- and three-wheelers to clear the way for the progress of automobilization, this idea is going against the current. But Morissette never lets that get in her way. Essentially, the activist is simply taking her fight South. Over the past 25 years, the Montreal bicycle pasionnaria has coordinated the anti-car movement alongside local legend "Bicycle Bob" Silverman, the poet/activist who coined the word "velorution" (velo means bike). With him, she launched "Le Monde bicyclette" -- another play on words meaning either people on bikes or the World on a bike. Specializing in spectacular …